You've Got To Taste This

Thanksgiving is mere days away, which means Christmas is right around the corner. When did that happen? At MyRecipes.com, we've been thinking about holiday food for weeks and weeks, and finally it's time to actually enjoy some with family and friends.

Now I love turkey and green bean casserole as much as the next person, but let's be honest. When you think holidays, you think sweets. And when you think sweets, the prettier they look, the sweeter they somehow taste.

Through a very official selection process known as "I pick the ones I'd most want to eat," I'm giving you the 10 prettiest holiday cookies on our site -- according to Carrie. To find over 1,000 more delicious cookie recipes, visit our cookie page.

And in no particular order, they are...

                            

   Peppermint         Chocolate-Dipped         Vanilla Bean               Rudolph's        Peppermint-Topped
     Pinwheel         Hazelnut Shortbread      Sugar Cookies        Christmas Sugar          Brownies
       Cookies                        Hearts                                                                Cookies     

                         

  Gingerbread              Peppermint                  Amaretto                 Cookie Trees             Gingerbread
        People               Molasses Cookies       Butter Cookies                                                      Pinwheels
 

Comment with a vote for your favorite! Or, tell me about one that didn't make my list! Happy baking!

I adore apples: fresh, baked, sauteed, and pressed into cider but applesauce was never my thing.

Sweet Harvest Applesauce Bundt Cake

1½ cups unbleached white all-purpose flour or whole wheat pastry flour, plus
additional for the pan
1¼ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon
8 to 10 vigorous gratings of nutmeg (or two pinches ground nutmeg)
Dash of ground cloves
Dash of ground allspice
½ cup raisins
2 to 4 tbsp. walnuts, toasted and chopped (optional but it gives the cake a great crunch)
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1¼ cups unsweetened applesauce (chunky or smooth)
¼ cup mild vegetable oil (e.g, corn, canola, peanut)
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Confectioners’ sugar (for dusting)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Decide on the pan: a 9-inch bundt cake pan, an 8 x 4-inch loaf pan, or three 5 x 2-inch loaf pans. Spray the pan(s) thoroughly with cooking spray. Dust each pan with a little flour, knock out the excess, and set aside.

Looking to make this Halloween memorable? In addition to your favorite store-bought candies (Snickers, anyone?), make Halloween treats to bring out the boo in you.  Whether you need Halloween treats for the classroom, Halloween treats for trick or treaters, or Halloween party treats, we've got you covered! (Don't believe us? Check out our Halloween Bake Shop (left) to get you started!)

This year, skip the door-to-door madness and instead host a Kid-Friendly Halloween Block Party. From centerpiece to party favors, we've got the play-by-play game plan to make this year's fright night anything but scary! If an adult-friendly gathering is more your style, check out the Halloween Open House, the perfect party for a night when you're planning on a lot of coming and going of guests!

Get into the season with delicious Candy Apple Recipes. From Toffee Candy Apples to Candy-Coated Caramel Apples, we've got the toppings to make this season's favorite fruit even better.

Story time tends to get a little spooky this time of year, so get into the spirit of the holiday starting at dinner with our collection of Vampire-Proof Dishes.  Instead of wearing a garland of garlic around your neck this year, prepare one of these tasty dishes instead.

If your Halloween party is more of a small gathering than the event of the year, browse our collection of Spooky Halloween Menus guaranteed to help you celebrate All Hallows Eve in great spirits. There are 13 for you to choose from, naturally.

Need more inspiration for the perfect Halloween party? Check out a few of our other spooky features:

No Tricks--Just Treats... Get into the fun of the season with these "not-too-scary" Halloween treat recipes.

Spooky Snacks & Devilish Drinks... Set out a fiendish spread of appetizers and beverages when you host the annual Halloween costume party.

            While some people spend the afternoon watching a riveting game of football or curl up on the couch for a daily dose of Oprah, my dirty little secret is cooking shows. Baking, cooking, entertaining, public television or cable – I watch them all, but my absolute favorite star is British chef Jamie Oliver. He manages to be charming, informative, funny, and educational all while chopping, dicing, or grabbing fresh veggies from his garden. His show “Jamie at Home” focuses on one ingredient each week, and contains 2 or 3 recipes for that ingredient. The recipes are always innovative, interesting, and delicious and I was spellbound when Jamie made butternut squash muffins on a recent butternut squash episode. Quick, easy, and healthy – perfect for a snack, or to satisfy a kid’s sweet tooth (they’ll just think it’s a cupcake). And it’s a great way to use butternut squash, which is in season now through winter. Make the muffins with or without the frosting (“frosty top” in Jamie speak); they’re fabulous either way. (And check out Jamie’s show; it runs on the Food Network.)

Butternut Squash Muffins with a Frosty Top

14 ounces butternut squash, skin on, deseeded and roughly chopped

2 1/4 cups light soft brown sugar

4 large free-range or organic eggs

Sea salt

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted

2 heaping teaspoons baking powder

Handful of walnuts, chopped

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

For the Frosted Cream Topping:

1 clementine, zested

1 lemon, zested

1/2 lemon, juiced

1/2 cup sour cream

2 heaping tablespoons icing (confectioner’s) sugar, sifted

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped out

Lavender flowers or rose petals, optional

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line your muffin tins with paper cups.

Whiz the squash in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the sugar, and crack in the eggs. Add a pinch of salt, the flour, baking powder, walnuts, cinnamon and olive oil and whiz together until well beaten. You may need to pause the machine at some point to scrape the mix down the sides with a rubber spatula. Try not to overdo it with the mixing - you want to just combine everything and no more.

Fill the paper cups with the muffin mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Check to see whether they are cooked properly by sticking a wooden skewer or a knife right into one of the muffins - if it comes out clean, they're done. If it's a bit sticky, pop them back into the oven for a little longer. Remove from the oven and leave the muffins to cool on a wire rack.

As soon as the muffins are in the oven, make your runny frosted topping. Place most of the clementine zest, all the lemon zest and the lemon juice in a bowl. Add the sour cream, icing sugar and vanilla seeds and mix well. Taste and have a think about it - adjust the amount of lemon juice or icing sugar to balance the sweet and sour. Put into the fridge until your muffins have cooled down, then spoon the topping onto the muffins.

Serve on a lovely plate (on a cake stand if you're feeling elegant, or on a rustic slab if you're more of a hunter-gatherer type!), with the rest of the clementine zest sprinkled over. For an interesting flavor and look, a few dried lavender flowers or rose petals are fantastic.

Makes 12 muffins

Note: Unfrosted muffins freeze well; just wrap them in plastic wrap and stick them in a freezer bag for up to one month.

We in the MyRecipes office, as you might've guessed, love food.  Not just a passing, "Ooh, cookies" kind of way, but in an indulgent "there's leftover layer cake by the coffee pot" kind of way. So it's no surprise that when you're assigned to bring a treat to the office (say, for our monthly birthday celebration), it's kind of a big deal.

Don't get me wrong-- we aren't food snobs around here.  We love (and enjoy!) Girl Scout cookies just as much as we love store-bought classics. It's just that when your month comes around, you're unlikely to break out the break-n-bake. Oh no, you go for the big guns.

Yesterday was my turn and I brought out the big (ooey gooey) guns: Mississippi Mud Cake. Holy sweet chocolate frosting is this dessert good.  Rich, too.  Almost too rich-- you couldn't really eat it with ice cream without going into a sugar coma.

For our crew, the unofficially Office Birthday Treats rules are as follows:

1) Bite-Sized is Better.  You can pick up more than one without others noticing, and it's much easier to sneak a few extra on your way (ahem) to the copier. 

2) Always Include Ice Cream.  Whether we're having brownies, cookies, cake, or yummy little bites of chocolate deliciousness, we always pair it with ice cream.  Two kinds, in fact; one a classic vanilla and the other a toss up (Mint for me, please!).

3) Skip the Fancy Decorations.  You can adorn each cookie if you want, or add festive writing to the cake, but we're just going to eat it, and fast.  We choose function over form-- layer on that frosting!

What do you make for your office mates?  Anyone with a rotating lunch crew out there?

Our Facebook fans and Twitter followers are competing to see who makes the Best Summer Dessert.  Vote now until Thursday July 23rd by clicking here and selecting your favorite.  The winner will be announced here on Friday, July 24th.  Good luck! To see more about the (delicious!) contenders, keep reading!

We asked our fans, followers, and users to send us their Best Summer Dessert recipe and, boy, were we amazed at the responses we got.  Tarts, crisps, crumbles, pies, and more... enough sweets to satisfy our grandkids' sweet tooths, assuming we have kids, they have kids, and those kids like summer desserts. 

We painstakingly narrowed the field to the top five, representing a variety of summer sweets.  Vote for your favorite, and read on to learn more about the recipes and their creators. Thanks to everyone who submitted recipes! Stay tuned for our next contest!  (Read More...)

Do you make THE best summer dessert out there?  Prove it!  Submit your original go-to summer dessert recipe with a photo for a chance to win a featured spot right here on the You've Got to Taste This blog.  We’re accepting submissions (don’t forget the photo!) until 5pm est Wednesday, July 15^th.  We’ll pick the top five contenders and then let you, your friends, your dog, and your friends’ dogs go to our Facebook fan page to vote for the title of Best Summer Dessert Recipe.  Cobblers, pies, cakes, gelato, popsicles, and more are all welcome at the table.  Go to Facebook to vote as much as you like between Friday July 17^th and Thursday July 23^rd, and make sure to tell your friends that you’re in the running for Top Summer Dessert Chef.  The winner will be announced (and featured!) here on You’ve Got to Taste This on Friday, July 24^th.

Send your submissions to Ashley_Johnson@timeinc.com with the phrase “I Make the Best Summer Dessert!” in the subject line. Aprons on and good luck!

(photography by Abbi Masters)

Since I've been pregnant, my cravings can be summed up in 3 words: beef, cheese, and chocolate. The latter of the 3 is pretty much a necessity each day, so when my brother-in-law picked up this curious little tin while my husband and I were vacationing with the family, I had to try it out.

What lied inside was truly fabulous! Upon further investigation, I learned that Sin in a Tin (visit http://sininatin.org/), as it was cleverly named by its creator, Chef William Guthrie, can be served by itself, with fresh fruit, or spread on cookies. It's also gluten-free and makes a GREAT gift! But I had to know, would others love this treat as much as I did?

Last week when I was in Denver for the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference, my friend James took me into a wonderful little chocolate shop on Platte Street.  It's called Wen Chocolates, and was founded in 2003 by William Poole and Loren Penton.

All of the chocolates are produced by hand, and have no preservatives or stabilizers. I was especially intrigued by the antique molds that they use to make some of the candies. Just gazing into the candy case is a treat as these chocolates are truly works of art.

But what good is chocolate if you're just looking at it, right?  I sampled a piece of rosemary dark chocolate and it was divine. The rich dark chocolate with just a subtle touch of rosemary made me very happy. I also sampled a piece of the Savannah, which is dark chocolate infused with vodka, cayenne pepper, white pepper, and hot Hungarian pepper. It's really lovely topped with a little piece of chili mango and has quite a kick.  Steven, who was working in the store that day, told me that Paula Deen's sons had been in and taken some of the Savannah chocolates back to Paula and she loved them. How could she not?  Some of the other flavor choices for truffles include bourbon-vanilla, citrona, and kaffir lime.

I also loved the "deviled egg" chocolates they had last week.  I guess the egg white half was white chocolate and the yellow filling was chocolate colored with some type of natural ingredient and combined with Rice Krispies to give it texture.    Such a fun idea for the season.  You can order any of these chocolates online, and I can assure you that you'll have a hard time deciding which ones are the best. 

And in case your were wondering, the word "Wen" comes from an ancient Egyptian word meaning "to exist." If you find yourself in downtown Denver, walk over to Platte Street and indulge your senses.

I'm no sushimi master and I still haven’t tried making the real deal, but rolling candy sushi is a great start! These bit-sized enjoyments are fun for kids like myself to make and gobble down by the handful. Beware of the high volume sugar rush. A box of roll-ups, gummy worms or Swedish Fish, Rice Krispies, marshmallows, and butter is all you need to make 32 rolls.

While I was rolling a batch for a work related project last night I couldn’t help but imagining ways to incorporate these sweet sushi bites into party ideas. This partially originated from an invitation I received last week to attend a ladybug themed birthday party for a precious 2-year old, Megan. So it made me think, wouldn’t these sweet sushi bites be fantastic incorporated into a Japanese themed Birthday party? Cute kimonos, beautiful paper lanterns, and creative origami art. I've decided that candy sushi can be fun for everyone and the possibilities are endless in how you can incorporate these colorful treats. Enjoy!

What are some fun foods you’ve made or seen?